Fly, Eagle, Fly: An African Tale

After years of raising an eagle as a chicken, a South African farmer is challenged by his friend to return it to the wild, so they bring the eagle to the mountain top to see if it still knows how to live free and fly after all the time that has passed.

A favorite African fable, attributed to the Ghanaian educator Aggrey of Africa, soars in this superb inspirational picture book set in the Transkei region of South Africa. An African man discovers an abandoned, newly hatched eaglet and brings it back to his village, where he raises it among the chickens. Knowing no other life, the eagle clucks, pecks and stays on the ground just like the chickens, until a visitor to the village tries to set things right. With determination, the visitor insists that the eagle be restored to its birthright: "You belong not to the earth, but to the sky. Fly, eagle, fly!" Daly's airy, dusty-hued watercolors celebrate both the serene beauty of a South African landscape and the gentle, humming rhythm of village life. Gregorowski, an Anglican priest, once worked in the Transkei; in an endnote, he explains the tale's religious and political significance and poignantly reveals that he retold this tale many years ago for his terminally ill daughter ("I wanted her to understand that we are all born to be eagles who are lifted up with the might of the Spirit"). A preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu distills the book's powerful and peaceful spirituality. Ages 5-9. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Daly's outstanding paintings lift this modern parable into extraordinary realms; Archbishop Desmond Tutu provides a foreword. In a small South African village, a farmer finds an eaglet that has fallen out of its nest, takes it home, and feeds it along with his chickens. Thus the eagle doesn't know it can fly; ``It eats chicken food. It thinks like a chicken. It is a chicken,'' says the farmer. However, the farmer's friend is determined to help the eagle soar, and so it does, ``never again to live among the chickens.'' Gregorowski's clipped narrative style ensures that the didacticism grates but lightly, while resplendent watercolor-and- ink paintings in warm earth tones capture the panorama of village life. Every scene brings onlookers not only the action of the story, but graceful details of the setting. An appealing tale. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

While searching for a lost calf, a farmer finds an eagle chick. "The eagle is the king of birds," he says, "but we shall train it to be a chicken." And so the proud bird is raised among the barnyard fowl. One day, a friend visits and vows to prove that the eagle really belongs to the sky. However, each time he urges the bird to fly, it returns to Earth. Early one morning, the friend takes the bird to the top of a nearby mountain to greet the dawn. In a breathtaking moment, the bird rises with the sun and soars into the sky, "never again to live among the chickens." Gregorowski's retelling of a Ghanian folktale is a powerful celebration of the human spirit and its need for independence. It is beautifully complemented by watercolors, rich in the vibrant tones of earth and sky, which Daly dedicates to the children of South Africa. A foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu provides background on the tale. Michael Cart